Saturday, August 27, 2011

The ER….

After meeting me on Redwood Rd and loading both me and the bike into the back of Michelle’s car, we dropped Michelle off at the parking lot where I left the truck so that she could take that home while Deb took me over to the ER to have my shoulder looked at.

One of the things I hate most about cycling is the clothing that road cyclists wear. I completely understand the reason and purpose of the spandex shorts with their built in chamois and I’m totally sold on wearing them when I ride. I enjoy the comfort the lightweight nylon jerseys provide and appreciate the pockets in the back where I can stash my gels and snacks. What I don’t like is wearing them when I’m more than 10 ft away from the bike. I feel self conscious and somewhat silly. The shorts and jerseys are tight and with my middle-aged physique the jersey ends up looking like I’ve shoved 10 pounds of pork into a 5 lb sausage sleeve. As a matter of fact, I always wear baggy shorts over them if there’s any chance I’ll have to be seen in public off the bike.

Today, of course was an exception. I left my house in my spandex. I planned on doing the ride, getting back in my truck and going home. No side trips, no going out in public and no reason for anyone to see me off the bike…..Obviously that plan went out the window as soon as I crashed and now here I am, standing in the ER in shredded spandex and a ruined bike jersey.

Luckily at 9:00 on a Saturday morning, the ER isn’t quite in full swing yet and they got me registered and in process pretty quickly. I went to x-ray where they took pictures of my shoulder, my ribs and my collarbone. Everything looked good except of the course the collarbone.

From x-ray, they took me in to a room where I met with the doctor who not only showed me the x-ray, but provided a print out that I could save for future bragging rights. Unfortunately this is also where I met the nurse that was going to clean out the road rash on my knee.

She was young and cute and seemed like a nice enough person….right up until she grabbed the sponge and water bottle that she used in the dark art of torture that she practiced…oh sure, she kept apologizing and tried to appear sincere, but I could tell that for some reason she hated me and wanted to see me cry….I didn’t of course, because I’m tougher than that…..ok, it’s possible I whimpered a bit, but I did it in a very manly way.

After what seemed like a full day of the Spanish Inquisition but was probably less than 10 minutes, she covered the wounds, the doctor deemed me fit and sent me home to begin my rest and recuperation period.

For anyone that knows me, you’ll understand when I say this is going to be the toughest part of the whole process for me. I’m not really good at sitting still. As a matter of fact, if I’m not sleeping, I prefer to be in motion. The whole idea of spending the weekend laying on the couch would be like a prison sentence…..a sentence I have a feeling I’m going to be enduring for at least a couple of weeks…..